The Red Hand

Chapter 234 – You’ve Got to be Kitten Me!

"Alright, Miji, we're going to head up to the beach house for the day! So it's time to get out of the water!" Yumi yelled to her sister, who was swimming around with Mr. Blubber. The day had been a fun one and everyone was thoroughly tan/burned even with extra layers of protective lotion. Yumi had never really spent time at the beach before and the girls enjoyed showing her and Miji what some fun in the Sun was like.

"But Sister! I don't wanna go!" Miji pouted. She'd been enjoying herself all day, and took to the ocean quite well, despite her inability to swim.

{The water is fun and Mr. Blubber is fast!} (Miji)

"The Sun is going down, Miji. You can't stay in the water when it gets dark." Yumi giggled. Seeing her sister enjoy herself so much was nice, but she couldn't allow her to remain in the water any longer today. "Besides, I heard a story that naughty girls who get in the water after dark turn into horrible fishmen!" She decided to mess with her sister a bit and tell her an embellished story that Akagi had once mentioned to her in the past.

{Bad girls sleep with the fishys!} (Yumi)

"EEP!" Miji squeaked as she told Mr. Blubber to head back to shore, where she was dropped off. "I don't wanna be a smelly fish man!" She turned to Mr. Blubber. "You'd best be careful, Mr. Blubber! You're too cute and nice to become all smelly!" She pet the dolphin on the head which elicited a happy sound as it splashed away.

"Mr. Blubber will be nice and safe in my storage, so don't worry about him." Alice returned from her ocean platform, walking across the water. "So don't worry. I'll make him all nice and clean for you! That way you can play again later." She chuckled as she sucked up her various puppets back into her inventory.

After drying Miji off, Yumi wrapped a blanket around the shivering girl. "Did you have fun today?" She asked her sister as the three girls walked back toward the blankets that Kana was putting away.

"Yeah! It was amazing! The ocean is fun!" Miji gave a toothy smile that practically melted her sister's heart.

"Good! I'm glad to hear it." Yumi pat her on the head. "Now let's get you dried off and changed. We're going to have some seafood for dinner at a nice place that Naomi picked out, so make sure to remember your manners." She was worried that Miji might repeat her pasta mess.

{I'm so glad that Akagi and I will never have children. Doing this for my sister is bad enough...} (Yumi)

"I'll be good, I promise." Miji said as she took off running towards Kana and the girls, where she began telling them all about the different fish and sea life she saw while riding Mr. Blubber.

"There was a huuuuge turtle in the water! It was so big that I think I could've ridden on it!" Miji smiled.

{Mr. Blubber wouldn't let me ride it though...} (Miji)

"That's really neat." Mika said with a beaming smile as she stroked Miji's head. "Maybe it was a Kappa!" She laughed.

"Don't go jinxing anything!" Kana scolded her for making a careless comment like that. "Yokai are actually real, and there's no telling if Kukurihime was the only one of them to stick around." She sighed.

{I SWEAR TO GOD IF A KAPPA ATTACKS US I'M FEEDING YOU TO IT, MIKA!} (Kana)

"I'm pretty sure any real Yokai around here would be far too afraid to do anything." Naomi commented as she fixed her hair with a pony holder.

"Well, let's not go tempting fate, thank you very much." Kana huffed as she finished putting all the beach equipment away in a big bag. "The last thing I need to do is call Onee-chan and tell her that somebody drowned because a Kappa or some other sea creature attacked them."

{She'd probably find it funny honestly...} (Mika)

"I'm pretty sure we could take them!" Himari said proudly as she performed imaginary air punches. "One shot, and we'd split any nasty old Kappa in half! Woosh-Woosh!"

"That being said, I don't actually think we need to worry about running into said creature." Momo noted that Kappa lived in rivers, not in the ocean, and that most water-loving Yokai wouldn't go anywhere near such a crowded beach.

"None of my puppets saw anything strange either, so let's not worry about it." Alice shrugged. "Besides, if anyone, human or Yokai tries anything, I can easily handle them." She could easily fight most things from this world, even without the use of her puppets.

{I won't let anyone hurt Miji! Any nasty old Kappa will get punched straight to the moon by Fluffy and Floofy!} (Alice)

"Oh yeah, that's right." Kana laughed. "I kinda forget sometimes that you're a player and can actually do some pretty crazy things." Alice, normally, seemed so non-threatening that the girls often forgot just how powerful she was compared to them.

{Lets just keep thinking of her as my happy little niece... God... I have a niece at seventeen... ugh...} (Kana)

"Alice is what we in the business call a danger loli." Mika giggled. "She is cute and cuddly, but with one finger she can rip off your head!"

{What fucking business?!? The kind that gets Interpol on you?!? Is the Magical Girl teaming up with Avahn to do evil?!?} (Kana)

"If she's the 'danger loli' as you put it, then I'd say that makes you the magical loli." Naomi rolled her eyes.

"Being small and cute is great!" Alice commented. "You all are just jealous of Mika and I." Her lips curved into an evil grin. "But I suppose that's because you old ladies are just jealous of younger, cute, and more energetic girls like us. Ku, Ku. Ku." She gave a slightly evil laugh, one that Akagi had specifically taught her.

{Why must the cute little girl give the most cliché evil laugh...} (Kana)

"Alice, you might be powerful, but Onee-chan taught me your weakness." Kana wiggled her fingers at her, menacingly. "So perhaps be a bit nicer to us, lest I pull out the secret weapon!"

{Scary Kana plus tickles is the stuff of nightmares.} (Naomi)

"No tickles!" Alice shrieked in terror. "Tickles are evil! Mama always does them to me, and it makes me so tired..." She hid behind Yumi.

{Evil tickles!} (Alice)

"Trust me, kid. I know how you feel." Mika gave a wry smile. She'd been on the receiving end of Akagi's tickles once before, though in her case, it was completely willingly and something that she'd done out of curiosity. Though she'd instantly regretted it.

{The tickles were fun, until they weren't...} (Mika)

"Akagi's ticking is a bit extreme, especially when she decides to go all out." Yumi'd been on the receiving end of that more than once.

{She can get a bit overzealous with the tickling, and I think I even passed out one time when she used her shadow tendrils to tickle practically everywhere at once.} (Yumi)

Once everything was packed up, and the girls got changed, they went back to their beach house to shower and put on different clothing before they went to dinner. Osaka had numerous different seafood restaurants, and Naomi liked one in particular that she'd been to in the past. It sat on the boardwalk overlooking the ocean, and it had quite a wide selection of food including all kinds of local catches and recipes.

The beach house they were staying in was, as expected, high-end and was far larger and more extravagant than either Mika or Kana expected. Once everyone washed off the salt from their bodies, they threw on fresh clothing and got ready for a nice relaxing night after an exhaustingly fun day at the beach. The Sun had completely gone down by this point, and while it was still Summer, the night air was starting to get cool, thus everyone threw on long-sleeved shirts to stave off chills.

"Now, keep hold of my hand." Yumi said to her sister as the group left the beach house. "The city is a dangerous place, so you can't get separated from me." She was worried that Miji would get lost, since children tended to run around aimlessly.

"Ok!" Miji said as she grabbed onto Yumi's hand with a smile.

"Does one of us need to hold Alice's hand too?" Mika smirked as she looked over at the girl in question. "She might get lost out here, and we can't risk such a poor defenseless little girl like her getting snatched up by some bad people!" She laughed, her comment eliciting an eye roll and small electrical shock from Alice.

“OWCHI!” Mika jumped as she was tazed.

{DANGER LOLI IS DANGEROUS!} (Mika)

"I'm pretty sure if somebody did kidnap Alice, they'd quickly come to regret all their life choices as she was ending their very existence." Naomi sighed as she ignored the feint smell of singed Mika.

"Either that or Mama would come and eat their soul." Alice shrugged as she deftly avoided a swipe from Mika. "Regardless of who deals with them, its certain that they wouldn't be around for very long." The harmless-looking Alice was anything but, and as the girls had seen in Nagoya, she was able and willing to kill people. "Though I still think that Mika is the one we need to be watchful of. This girl is even more irresponsible than me, and I'm fifteen." She snickered.

{Sad part is, she's not wrong...} (Naomi)

"Oi!" Mika protested. "How am I less responsible than you! I'm  older and more mature than you, missy!"

"Older sure, but definitely not wiser or mature." Alice retorted as she giggled.

"Yeah, when Mika was being made, I think they ran out of smarts and just dumped in extra stupid to compensate!" Kana howled as Mika tried to bop her on the head.

"Now, Now. Mika isn't stupid. Her head is just filled with sparkles, gumdrops, and wonders!" Naomi commented while laughing.

"Nice to see that my so-called friends are the first ones to start talking smack about me." Mika rolled her eyes. "And by the way, you forgot kitties and marshmallows. Those are in there too!" She laughed.

"Is the kitty in question Onee-chan?" Kana smirked.

"Hey, I don't discriminate. Fluff is fluff." Mika nodded confidently. "Akagi just so happens to be the floofiest thing around."

"Fluff is justice!" Miji commented. "At least that was what Sister said the other night."

{… Well... Am I wrong?} (Yumi)

"Poor Yumi has been corrupted completely by the kitty." Naomi chuckled. "I suppose there's no saving you from her paws now."

"As if she'd want to be saved." Mika laughed. "Yumi loves her little kitty and would be devastated if she left her. You could say that she and Akagi are a purr-fect match!" The girls' awful puns caused Yumi to sigh.

"Awww, don't worry, Yumi. We're just kitten around." Kana continued with the pun train, and Yumi only continued to sigh.

"Yeah, don't take things so purr-sonal." Alice joined in, and Yumi continued to sigh over the bad cat puns.

"Sister looks sad, so maybe we should all give her a couple of MEWs to make her feel better." Miji turned to her sister and took a stance that looked like a cat pawing. "MEW!"

{Why did Akagi show her that?!? Because goddammit its cute!} (Yumi)

"Are we done picking on me?" Yumi asked.

"For now!" (Kana x Alice x Miji x Naomi x Mika)

Once the teasing had subsided the group started their walk from their beach house to the boardwalk where the seafood restaurant was. After around fifteen minutes, the group came to the location in question, a small place that overlooked the ocean named the Sea Cucumber. Once they'd arranged for a table on the external eating area, they moved through the dining area and outside, only to see an unexpected face.

"Oh? What a strange coincidence seeing you all here." Superbia was sitting at one of the outdoor tables with an older man and woman. The girls almost didn't recognize her at first because her hair was down and she was wearing normal street clothes.